


your city gave me trauma

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: /dreamsmp rp, Amnesia, Dave | Technoblade and Wilbur Soot and TommyInnit are Siblings, Familial Relationships, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Light Angst, Mental Health Issues, Past Character Death, Respawn Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Misguided, Phil always says. Disappointment, Wilbur always hears instead.Wilbur could have been a golden child, the perfect son, a prodigy - but instead he is a failure and he paid the price for his hubris.(Ghost!Wilbur doesn’t remember a lot. He’s trying to figure out whether or not that’s a good thing.)
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 587
Collections: Anonymous





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never really been into RPF, but I’ve been plagued with ideas for Ghostbur ever since I began listening to Jubilee Line every fucking night on repeat for literal hours and I feel there’s enough of a disconnect between actual Wilbur and the role he plays to feel comfortable writing this.

Sometimes, faintly, when New L’Manburg is still and quiet as its residents doze, Wilbur can hear a dripping noise, pitter-pattering against the floorboards. 

It’s strange, really, because this house is too newly built to have any leaks and the sky outside is dark but clear, without any rain to begin with. But then he peers down and sees the glint of a diamond sword through his chest and realises -  _ huh, I’m bleeding, aren’t I? _

Maybe Wilbur should be more concerned. And well, he had managed to be the first time, but the invasive feeling of a blade through his hollow chest lost its shine after a couple of quite confusing days. Wilbur simply raises his head and goes right back to staring at the wall, sitting cross-legged in the corner with little else to do but daydream. 

Phil can never look at him when he is stuck in this state, holding a hand over his mouth as he turns a sickly shade. Tommy can’t either, not that Wilbur would like someone so young to see him like this, and neither can the young boy who is by his side whose name is on the tip of Wilbur’s tongue but he can never quite recall. 

Techno is the opposite. His anarchy never rains down on this land when the blood and ectoplasm spill from the crater in Wilbur’s chest. Instead, he just watches, silently, gaze hollow and empty and absent of all emotion, as if it is impossible to tear his eyes away from the train wreck that is Wilbur’s broken body. 

See, the thing is, Wilbur is still getting used to these oddities and the even odder reactions of his family - because Wilbur doesn’t remember everything. 

Sometimes, he will forget why he and Schlatt can no longer play their games of old, confused as to why the ghost of a goat avoids Wilbur at all costs, eyes heavy with a guilty conscience. Sometimes, he doesn’t understand why his family seem plagued with grief, why Tommy can barely meet his eyes, why Techno is finding it harder to contain his anger, why Phil spends his nights wide awake and suffering. 

They are all mourning. Sometimes Wilbur forgets why, forgets who could have possibly died for good when he feels as human as the day he entered this world, bright-eyed and ready to explore with his brother by his side. 

Then, Wilbur remembers that he is hovering above the ground and his hands pass through things without his control and everyone stares at him with concern in their eyes, as if he is one-of-a-kind but a monster all the same.

People here don’t just return as ghouls, they either click yes and breathe anew, or click no and have themselves fade into nothingness. Wilbur and Schlatt are special that way, definitely special, but perhaps not in a way that is particularly all that heart-warming to the residents of this place. 

Tommy keeps a worn and blood-stained trench coat in the back of his closet. He never wears it, not when it’s two sizes too big for him and definitely not his colour. He just clenches the thing in his hands and stares, wide eyes haunted by something only he can see. 

Wilbur looks at it and feels as if something is intensely wrong, because it is so muted and dull in comparison to the much more comfortable yellow sweater he wears, but part of him feels as if he should be wearing the coat instead. A coat that was made for someone so different to Wilbur, but still Wilbur all the same.

_ I’m better dead than alive,  _ Wilbur thinks, although he doesn’t know the answer as to why, not exactly, not when his brain is so jumbled and the thoughts that should linger scatter. 

Faintly, on the days Wilbur actually manages to remember that he is a ghost on his own without someone there to remind him, he thinks part of him must have really wanted to die and yet part of him must have not wanted to die at all, if the server hadn’t torn his code to pieces but instead let him exist in this ghostly form.  _ I have unfinished business, but what is it?  _

The answer is clear. Wilbur has his sins to atone for, he just doesn’t quite know what they are yet.  _ We’ve all done things we regret, Wilbur,  _ Phil had said once, staring down at the hands he’d scrubbed red raw, something Wilbur’s intangible hands couldn’t stop him from doing. 

When Tommy calls him  _ Wilby  _ instead of  _ Wilbur,  _ he always freezes, looking up into Wilbur’s warm eyes as if he expects something much colder to be glaring down at him instead. There’s an uncomfortable edge to Techno’s voice, a sense of betrayal when he tries to awkwardly speak with the other inhabitants of this place. 

It hurts. It hurts more than Wilbur thinks it should, because these people are his family, the ones he trusts above all else, the one thing in his life left that he can remember with certainty, and he misses what they once were even though it is obvious he is the one who ruined it. 

_ Tommy, was I the bad guy?  _ he asks hesitantly.  _ Was I the villain in this story?  _ Tommy pauses, doesn’t say anything for a while, and Wilbur thinks that alone is good enough of an answer.  _ Misguided,  _ Phil always says.  _ Disappointment,  _ Wilbur always hears instead. 

Techno never passes judgement, not when he too has his own list of crimes that he will forever refuse to apologise for, but it’s fine. Their younger brother and their father have already made that call for him. Tubbo, whose name flits in and out of Wilbur’s memory at random with little notice, tells him he did more good than bad but Wilbur doesn’t, can’t believe that. 

Wilbur could have been a golden child, the perfect son, a prodigy - but instead he is a failure and he paid the price for his hubris. 

He makes a bullet-pointed list of the things that he remembers when they come back to him, keeps the small notebook in the pocket of his jeans so he can remind himself anytime something slips out of his grasp. There’s not much there right now, just a couple pages of the flashing images that pop into Wilbur’s head, from a ravine to the smell of fresh bread to his father’s cold eyes. 

Phil saw the list once and frowned. Wilbur thinks it might have been because of the  _ I don’t know  _ he had scribbled near the end. Although, maybe it might have been because the Wilbur that manages to remember makes a clear distinction between Phil - his father, the one who raised him into a kind man formed of naive optimism - and Philza - the man who clutched the sword that killed him, who arrived too late to save what was left of his son. 

Wilbur doesn’t want to disappoint him, not more than he must have already done, so he keeps the list hidden from human eyes. But sometimes, when he is all alone in his library, he brings it out, rubs a thumb over the discoloured pages and wonders why there was so little good in his life before for him to recall. 

Most of the time, Wilbur is numb, empty almost. Sapped of all emotion. Absent of all colour, evident in the gray of his skin. It’s the closest imitation of being at peace he will ever get. But sometimes, when the concern for his family’s sanity manages to escape him, he’s angry, righteous, wanting to crucify himself just so the voices will leave him alone. 

He wanders into the woods those days, unable to be around people for longer than a second without his skin crawling.  _ I needed help,  _ Wilbur thinks desperately, fingers clutching the sweater right where his heart would be, even though it no longer exists to race in time with his panicked thoughts.  _ I needed help and none of you cared and my own father stabbed me just because I asked him to- _

And then the bitterness seeps out of him, left behind to fester in the grass, and Wilbur returns back to being hollow. Sometimes, he thinks he could cry. But he’s a ghost now and while he somehow has blood to drain when his body glitches back the moment he had taken his last breath, there are no tear ducts left behind. Wilbur wishes there were. Perhaps crying would finally get the poison out of his system.

There are far too many limitations to being a ghost. He can’t sleep, but insomnia wasn’t a new feeling to the Wilbur that had been undeniably, utterly human to a fault. As the flaws sank deeper into his skull, sleep had avoided him and left him with dark circles beneath his eyes and a blurry vision that could not discern his own delusions from reality. 

That’s one of the only things that really sticks, that whoever he was before Phil stuck a sword through his chest was sleep-deprived, lonely and in desperate need of some therapy.  _ I’m so cold,  _ he whispers, his veins frozen, chilled all the way to his broken bones. Somehow, those words feel right. 

He sings to pass the time when daydreaming does no good. His voice is a tad strange now, a little more hoarse, as if he inhaled a little too much ash from the TNT he apparently had rigged beneath this town, even though Wilbur can never remember having an interest in destruction.

_ Wasting time, you’re wasting mine,  _ he hums.  _ Hate to see you leaving, fate worse than dying.  _ It’s an old song of his, older than whatever ties Wilbur to this stretch of land, one that should remind him of better days but is a lot more melancholic in the lyric choices than his smile will admit. The voice that accompanies it is haunting, echoing through the streets, whisked away by the winter breeze. 

Sometimes, when Wilbur perches atop his house and sings till the ache in his chest lessens, he sees lanterns flicker aflame and sad eyes watching his performance from far off windows. He’s used to that kind of gaze by now. The few who manage to face him directly always look as if they can barely deal with him being here, right in front of them, as if the sight of his muted smile borders the line between soft-hearted and disgusting. 

A man with fox ears always winces when they make eye contact. Wilbur thinks he should know his name, but at first, he doesn’t. Then he blinks and a child with the same orange fur stands in his place and Wilbur realises that this is his son. The memory fades far too quickly and he tries to ignore the pounding at the back of his head that screams  _ traitor. _

In an attempt to compensate for whatever he did that managed to make his son betray him, he dedicates his time to becoming a friendly neighbourhood ghost. When he has the energy to make himself tangible, he helps rebuild in smaller ways than the rest, hanging lanterns here and there or building a wishing well. He hovers around his family most of the time, engaging in little discussions, but it never stops the impending feeling of something being very wrong. 

_ They abandoned you,  _ the voice in his head always mocks.  _ Threw you out to the wolves when they’d had their fill. But they weren’t wrong for that, were they, Wilbur? It was only what you deserved.  _ And Wilbur may still be learning, carefully slotting pieces back into the puzzle that are his missing memories, but he knows he can’t disagree with that. 

Tommy, when it is just the two of them and neither of them can think of the right words to say, asks him why he stays this way, why he bothers existing in a space between life and death. Wilbur knows he could respawn, but respawning means remembering, remembering every little detail, and something deep inside Wilbur tells him that is a very bad, not at all good idea. 

When Wilbur tells him this, in a hushed voice that will never compare to his brother’s loud and boisterous tone, Tommy looks at him as if he’s finally gone mad, even though the voice inside Wilbur tells him he must have snapped a long time ago. 

His little brother, the boy he should have protected instead of letting himself be dragged down by his own demons, asks why he is putting himself through this, why he allowed himself to wither away to the point where he can no longer recall the simplest of things. Wilbur is careful, gentle, soft-spoken in his self-deprecation, but Tommy still stares at him with too much sorrow for a teenager when Wilbur reveals he doesn’t think he deserves to be alive. 

Wilbur doesn’t know if this constant forgetfulness that Tommy hates is a symptom of staying as a spirit for too long, or if it’s an effect of whatever tore him apart when he still had lungs to breathe with. When he sees Schlatt, a Schlatt who remembers everything and is drowning in his own remorse, he imagines it must be the latter, that his own mind is working against him.

_ What about your unfinished symphony?  _ a voice always nags at the back of his head, desperate for him to craft ruin once again.  _ They rebuilt it once more. The cycle of war and tyranny will never end. You will never be at peace for as long as L’Manburg remains. Are you truly happy with that, Wilbur? _

_ But I have all that I need already,  _ Wilbur thinks, confused.  _ I have my family, my guitar, and friends to watch my back. I’m happy enough, aren’t I? Why would I take that all away? For an ideology I don’t even remember well enough to believe in now? Violence has never been the only answer, not when I’m not the only one at stake.  _

Wilbur doesn’t linger on the fact that he is terrified of the skeletons in his closet. He doesn’t feel as if he has the right to. He’s selfish for not returning home alive, but part of him feels as if respawning would be selfish to those he hurt the most too. Wilbur has no energy left in him to be selfless, not that he’s ever been known for that, not when he committed the selfish act of pressuring his own father to kill him. 

And so, he stays. He stays, not quite whole, not quite all of Wilbur, but the sole part of him left behind in the aftermath of an explosion that had yet to be shattered beyond repair. 


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn’t expecting to have more ideas for this but it just kind of happened. I also just really wanted to use this chance to retcon Wilbur fucking a salmon.

Wilbur doesn’t dream.

It’s not because he doesn’t want to, but because he physically can’t, no matter how often he has tried to laze on a bed that he can’t help but phase through when he loses focus. Part of him wishes he could close his eyes and lose himself in fantasy, in memories of long ago when everything felt just a little more stable and less like his family were slipping through his fingers.

But the realm of sleep is not made for creatures like him. Ghosts have no need for such a function and so he resigns himself to slowly going stir-crazy, with little to do except strum his guitar and hope someone else experiences a bout of insomnia. Maybe the people around he will be more forgiving and willing to keep him company when they are sleep-deprived. 

Still, somehow, the server has gifted him with an imitation of the horrors that haunt those who slumber. Wilbur, who was born and raised in the shadow of monsters that go bump in the night, had grown used to the occasional bout of sleep paralysis, but this is much, much worse. 

He isn’t quite sure how to describe it, truly. He loses all sense of sense when he glitches, his already hazy form blurring, first around the edges but spreading thick and fast over his lifeless skin. For a moment, Wilbur is nothing more than a mass of corrupted code, pushed and pulled apart by a force only he can sense, and he _remembers._

_It’s so cold. Why am I so cold?_ Wilbur’s voice carries far in the darkness that has swallowed him, echoing against invisible wars. He has returned to the void that had welcomed him the minute his heart stopped, the icy feeling stroking the base of his neck and curling around his wrists and twisting around lungs that no longer exist. _Please, Phil, Techno, anyone - I can’t see. Help. I should be dead. Help-_

It always loops, a mantra on repeat, a cycle of him pleading for anyone to drag him out of this hell. He can speak, somehow, shuddering through the motions of remembering it all and then forgetting it all over again. Screaming, begging, pleading for a reprieve from whatever dragged him here. It’s his own personal punishment for being selfish, a coward, someone who ran from the first opportunity to pay for his sins. 

When he comes back down to reality, gone from that cage in a flash of light, his body somehow no longer aches even though he has been violently slammed past his limits. Wilbur always checks to see if he is fully intact, threading his fingers through messy hair to make sure he didn’t pull any of it out in the panic before counting them to make sure he has ten all together. 

He’s never left damaged, with the ghostly form able to take any sort of beating without leaving behind bruises, although whether or not he is coping mentally is probably up for debate. Wilbur finds a sliver of relief in that he hasn’t become too repulsive in his body yet, for while his face often brings up bad memories, he’s not inherently unapproachable. He hopes it stays that way, otherwise he thinks even his family will abandon him then.

These incidents mostly happen alone, the onset of them always coming with a warning signal, a tugging at Wilbur’s spine or a scratch he can’t itch over his collarbone. He is quick to run for the hills then, not wanting to burden the few that stick around with witnessing the fallout of not pressing the greenlight on the respawning front. 

But sometimes he isn’t fast enough to make his escape and he’ll return back to someone, anyone, standing shocked still in front of him, staring up with haunted eyes, as if they had just had a front row seat to something truly horrifying. Luckily, few have caught a glimpse of it so far. 

It hurts to burden him even more, but Phil has taken the brunt of it, on the nights where the human can’t sleep so he sits by the ghost’s side under the stars. Wilbur is always a little less perceptive around his father, more willing to not pay attention when he gets too caught in an up-lifting conversation, and so he ignores the sirens blaring in his head. He wishes he didn’t.

Wilbur doesn’t know himself how he must appear in these fleeting nightmares, but he can imagine how horrible it must be to see a former friend, a lost brother, a disappointment of a son malform into something grotesque and unnatural. Limbs bent at odd angles, eye sockets empty and bleeding, the skin melting off an absent face, mumbling voice echoing and distorted. At least in those moments his form finally matches who he was in life - a monster. An abomination. 

He’s used to this by now, so used it, and a kind smile always slips back onto his face when he regains even just a semblance of control. Whoever manages to catch him in the act always look at him in blatant astonishment, confused by how Wilbur’s dead eyes always seem so at peace with the pain. Phil’s own always gloss over with the tears only a father could manage for such a villain. But Wilbur deserves this, he knows he does, and so he never utters a single complaint.

His eyes are always slightly messed up in the aftermath, vision blurry even though death was supposed to have cured all his human ailments. Wilbur takes to sliding on the round glasses that Phil had saved for all these years, slightly too small for his more mature face. They help a little, at least, even though his smile dims every time he realises his father had clung onto his childhood possessions. 

His vocal chords don’t function for a while either, still recovering from the desperate screaming for help that had never come. At first, he had tried tapping morse code on the top of tables or the sides of buildings, but no one ever seemed to catch the noise, not when it was hidden behind Tommy’s loud voice. 

Wilbur resorts to writing down the most important parts of what he wishes he could say, his hands still twitching slightly, his grip lacking strength as his limbs flicker between touchable and not. He pairs each illegible sentence with a messy smiley face that doesn’t match the dark circles beneath his eyes. For while ghosts do not sleep, even they can experience bone-deep exhaustion. 

And when the ability to speak does return, his voice is even more distorted than usual, hoarse beneath the inhuman undertones, as if he has spent the last few hours sobbing his heart out even though the ability to form tears will never exist for him now. Ghosts know blood. Wilbur knows it very well. It’s a constant both in life and death and it spills from Wilbur’s chest without warning. But tears were not made for those who run from their regrets. 

Still, Wilbur can remember something vivid, a memory buried deep in the recesses of his mind, of a fleeting moment long ago. He is dressed in some kind of uniform, collapsed onto his bed, limbs heavy from overworking himself down to the very core till he’s nothing but a blubbering mess. Crying and crying and crying until there’s a crater in his heart that matches that of the L’Manburg ruins.

His jacket is crumpled and far beyond the formal appearance expected of a president, his skin is as grey as what it would become in death even though there was still a heart beating behind his rib cage, the urgent feeling of needing an escape so strong that it’s still present now. Crying had been a way to vent, even though no one had been there to listen. Maybe the loneliness was what fully pushed Wilbur over the cliff side into corruption. 

But Wilbur has no one to blame for that but himself, he supposes. He may not know everything, but he knows his family very well. He can’t imagine that Phil wouldn’t have dropped everything to come running to his side and whisk him away from whatever was ruining his state of mind. Phil was just a letter away. Tommy was right by his side. Wilbur should have given up, should have left before his sanity was beyond saving, but he didn’t and he is paying the price for that.

Phil tells him he shouldn’t be putting himself through this, that his form is weakening more and more as time passes by until he’ll eventually fade away. Tommy swears to him that it’s not worth it, that they can figure something, anything out to make Wilbur feel as if he is properly atoning, something that isn’t tearing him apart from the inside out. 

Techno promises that he can come back whole now, that even if the world turns against them both he will forever stand by his brother, that he’ll carry Wilbur’s newly respawned body far away from the memories of their past. Wilbur appreciates the sentiment, but he isn’t foolish enough to take his family’s word for fact. He will only press the _yes_ on the respawn menu when it feels right.

Wilbur did - something. Something bad. Something he doesn’t want to accept as being all his fault. And he feels like a child when he’s like this, reverting back to the insecure six or seven year old who wouldn’t stop clinging to Phil’s legs out of fear his new father would disappear without a trace. Wilbur can’t stop himself from relying on innocent smiles, when all he wants to do is lash out, throw a tantrum, do anything to escape what he’s done. 

_It was never meant to be,_ the voice at the back of his head taunts, like a demon on his shoulder, poking at his deepest issues. _You were never meant to be a leader, were you? Too immature for that, too easy to break under the pressure. Poor little Wilbur._ Wilbur ignores the mockery, even when he finds himself imagining it personified as a mirror of himself, in that dark trench coat that gathers dust in Tommy’s closet, arms out-stretched and mouth twisted into a maniacal grin.

Wilbur doesn’t look like that, at least he thinks so. Somehow, he can still catch a glimpse of himself in the few mirrors here. Knowledge from a far off land that he hasn’t visited in years tells him that vampires don’t have reflections, but he was never sure about ghosts. It’s hard to be an expert on a topic when the concept itself seemed unthinkable in a world where you can resurrect with just the click of a button. 

The sight always manages to shock him a little. The yellow sweater is too big on his bony shoulders, the red beanie falling off the back of curls that have seen better days. The colourful clothing at least makes him seem a little softer, even though his cheeks are sunken in and the cuts and scrapes that had covered him when he was alive have never truly faded. 

He’s still Wilbur, but a mix of the Wilbur that had energised everyone around him and the Wilbur who only brought destruction in his wake. No one seems to know which aspects of him they should linger on, whether they should focus on the soft voice that sings them lullabies or the moments where Wilbur cracks and splinters around the edges. It hurts, just a tad, to be the focus of such scrutiny. 

Because the thing is that yes, Wilbur loves his family and they are the only people willing to stick around him for better or for worse, but he can’t always be by their side, not when they look at him as if they’re waiting for the other shoe to finally drop and everything to come tumbling apart. He tries to make friends instead, but it’s a little hard when everyone avoids you like the plague, not that Wilbur can blame them for that. 

Tubbo is kind, one of the only citizens to not avoid him with blatant suspicion in their eyes, but Wilbur has no want to burden him. He’s just a boy, too young to be taking any of Wilbur’s problems on his shoulders when he is busy rebuilding a nation from the ground up. Wilbur remembers him more than he can remember others, but only in bits and pieces.

Wilbur wonders if Tubbo had somehow become part of Wilbur’s family tree without the ghost noticing. He’ll have to ask Phil if he adopted another kid when Wilbur wasn’t looking, even though he dreads the inevitable look of mourning he’ll receive when Phil recognises another large gap in Wilbur’s memories. If it did happen, Wilbur wishes he could recall gaining another brother. 

There is Quackity too, Wilbur supposes. He’s somewhat nice, at least to Wilbur’s face and only after a period of harsh resentment. Not so forgiving though, not when his anger only faded in the aftermath of _I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t remember anything, are you sure you aren’t making this up?_ He’s at least a lot more up to casual conversations than anyone else and Wilbur likes him, if only because he doesn’t stare at Wilbur as if he’s a circus attraction.

Friendships have become a strange area for Wilbur and he never knows quite where he stands with anyone, especially when the one person he can even remember being close to is Schlatt but the sight of his ghost makes Wilbur’s chest twist in discomfort. The ram is absent more often than not and with him goes the last pinch of hope Wilbur had left. There’s no returning to what once was for him, even as he’s constantly pushed to recall the past for his own sake. 

_See what you can remember off the top of your head. Start from there and we’ll help you fill in the blanks,_ Phil had whispered one morning, over the top of his breakfast, pushing a small notebook into Wilbur’s hands when no one else was looking. Wilbur had looked at him with a tilted head and confused eyes, because never before had his head felt so clear, so surely he couldn’t have forgotten anything, right?

That thought had quickly been rectified when he stared Tommy in the eyes and wondered when his little brother had grown so tall, his mind reverting back to before L’Manburg had ever been a name in anyone’s head, only snapping back out of it when Techno was particularly forceful in his assertions. _That can’t be right,_ Wilbur had murmured at the idea that he was missing so much from his memory that the passage of time had deserted him. _But it is, isn’t it?_

So he writes and writes and writes even more in the book for his eyes only and hopes to god that he’ll remember all the important bits. The quill shakes in his unsteady grip and the ink never quite dries right, handwriting far too messy for anyone but Wilbur himself to discern the meaning. He’s lucky it’s like that, considering the contents are a bit too much for his family to not break down over. 

Wilbur remembers - god, why can't he recall his name when it was in his head only a second ago? T- Tubbo? Tubbo. He remembers Tubbo, full of youthful energy and the optimism that had escaped Wilbur long ago, dedicating his time to building something. The lines of his work are indistinct and blurred in Wilbur’s mind, but what was worth remembering wasn’t the final product, but the proud smile on Tubbo’s face. 

Then there is Phil, protecting him from, well, everything. The everyday problems of someone who lives in a world full of monsters, the scared paranoia of a sleepy child, the delusions of grandeur of a man who has lost his mind. He writes it clinically - _Phil stabbing me to death with a sword_ \- but pauses, shoving a _-za_ next to Phil’s name in the small gap left between the words.

Wilbur doesn’t want to think of the one who shoved a sword through his fragile chest being the same as the kind man who would ruffle his hair and gave him his first guitar when he reached the young age of ten. It’s a small effort to make a distinction, one that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s worth it for Wilbur’s sake. 

He just wishes he and Phil could return back to the days of old, where his father would pull Wilbur into his arms to soothe his fears, wrapping his wings around his shaking body, Wilbur clinging to Phil’s back in return. Instead, somehow staying in the same room as Phil when the sun sets is fucking terrifying to the point it makes Wilbur’s knees shake and his already freezing blood run cold. He loved his father and yet still his father didn’t put up much of a fight when Wilbur wanted to die. 

He shakes his head, moving onto other childhood memories. Wilbur remembers sparring with a much smaller Techno who had much shorter hair, always losing but never taking the fights all that seriously to begin with. Wilbur wasn’t the kind of child to have tantrums over trivial matters. Techno had always been stronger than him, it was a simple fact, even if it didn’t make the scrapes on his knees or the bruises on his knuckles hurt any less. 

Wilbur only relied on childish tears for much more important matters, like who would get the last slice of fresh bread on the days supplies were running low. He’d eventually begin sharing his extra food with a new younger brother, who needed it to keep up with his endless amounts of energy. Wilbur would mess with Tommy because it was too amusing not to, banter the younger would return in earnest, but in truth Wilbur was just happy to have someone to both dote on and tease to his heart’s content. 

Then there is Sally. Contrary to somewhat popular belief, Wilbur was not deranged enough to do unspeakable things to a salmon. The real Sally had been a woman who loved fishing, but prejudices in this world run deep and the moment she realised her child was a hybrid was the moment she could no longer love it. 

Wilbur had only met her in passing, just a few times, but when he found Fundy in the forest surrounding her hometown, he knew he was hers, if only because the distinct orange of his fur matched her hair perfectly. It wasn’t that hard to put the pieces together. He avoided the town she had lived in after that. 

He had panicked, because Fundy didn’t deserve to know that aspect of his origins, not when Wilbur himself had enough self-esteem issues over his own abandonment, and so somehow the lie had come tumbling out, no matter how unbelievable it was. It was fitting, at least, because somehow a fish probably could have been a better mother than the woman who had abandoned Fundy by a river bank.

Wilbur shouldn’t be too judgemental. He’s not exactly winning any awards in the parenting apartment after all. Wilbur knows that blood means little, knows that his family is just a hap-hazardly thrown together group of outcasts and orphans, and the fact that he had raised Fundy should have been enough for him. But whenever he sees the fox, he can’t help but see himself as a false father, one who eventually abandoned him just like his mother. 

Fundy has been many things - a hybrid with matted fur abandoned to the dangerous whims of nature, a bright-eyed child that Wilbur sent along on a path paved with gold, and finally an adult who Wilbur neglected to the point that the bond that ties them is frayed and falling apart. Sometimes, Wilbur looks at him and his brain blanks, screeches to a halt, filled with confusion because he knows this one is important but he doesn’t know why. Wilbur can’t stop forgetting the people he cares about the most and the only reason why his father and his brothers stick is because they have too many memories together to count. 

Some things exist more as ideas rather than concrete memories. There is a van, and then a ravine too that Wilbur can remember little else of, whispers in his ears telling him that those stone walls held betrayal in their midst. Niki’s warm smile that waned into something tiny and sad under Wilbur’s violence. Techno inviting him into his armoury, his usual sharp smirk a lot more concerned at the deranged glint in Wilbur’s eyes.

Wilbur won an election, he thinks. He must have been president, at least for a short while. He can hear it now, faintly, cheering that quickly dimmed into silence. But his head tells him that the struggle for power had never been about him, and not truly about L’Manburg or the thrill of revolution either. He had done it for reasons that escape him now, but when he thinks hard enough, he sees a flash of Tommy’s defeated and disbelieving eyes. He doesn’t want to think about that.

Explosion. ~~Explosion.~~ Explosion. He crosses it out but then rewrites it again. It’s a cycle of acceptance and denial, rinse and repeat. He can no longer press a button without feeling dizzy. He can taste salt, salty tears, and there is a rush of air into his damaged lungs as the world crumbles around him, autumn breeze comforting amidst the sound of yelling and Phil turns to look at him - _you’re my son_ \- _kill me, stab me, they all want you to -_

Maybe it’s better to not remember some things. The _I don’t know_ is messy, scrawled and scribbled as the strength seeps out of him, paired with random dots and lines as the pen misses its mark. Perhaps it is better for these sins to stay buried six feet under. 

When Wilbur thinks for too long, pries too deep, there is always one word that stands out - corruption. And that is the simple fact of the matter, isn’t it? Wilbur spoiled, soured, rotted away until nothing good was left. He could believe for a moment that something must have invaded his mind, twisted him beyond belief - and then the hope fades and he realises there isn’t anyone to blame but Wilbur himself. Everyone hates him and it’s all his fault. 

He condemns himself for barely managing to be lucid amongst the storm clouds that flood his mind with too much emotion all at once. He tip-toes the line between sane and not, fights against the tightening grip of phantom hands around his throat. Sometimes, he drops offerings in the wishing well and desperately prays to some higher being for a reprieve, even though he has known the void and knows there is no one there to save him. 

_I want to be dead, I want to die,_ Wilbur tells Tommy and Tubbo with a light-hearted tone and a matching smile, blissfully ignorant to the horror on their faces at the casual admission. It is both a truth and a lie in equal measures, for if permanent death means an escape from the guilt that is slowly unravelling Wilbur at the seams, then he’ll gladly take it. 

Wilbur does not deserve to stay around his family for too long, not when the sight of their growing smiles make him feel safe and content, not when Wilbur’s never-ending attempts at self-destruction ruin their peaceful days. And so he strays from their homes, finds himself in a sewer amongst rats that treat him as one of their own, just another pest upon this place’s residents. Wilbur curls up in the corner, against the jutting edges of unpolished stone, and tries to seek peace. It never works out.

 _I don’t remember,_ he whispers, but then the volume rises in a crescendo and his voice gains a violent edge and he is clutching at his own hair, desperately holding back the urge to scream even though no one could hear him buried so deep in L’Manburg’s tombs. _Why can’t I remember?_

He is forgetting so much, so easily. Sometimes he can’t even remember writing the list, finds a notebook in his pocket and hums in confusion, and that is more concerning that anything else because he writes in the damn thing every day. But Wilbur can’t linger on what he cannot fix and so he buries himself into potion making and reading, hoping for nirvana with each hesitant step he takes.

Wilbur collects whatever books he can scavenge from the old L’Manburg’s remains or nearby villages pillaged by other travellers. Waters the flowers that bloom around New L’Manburg’s borders. Sometimes, he sits in front of his own grave, watches the bouquets left behind wilt and never be replaced, traces the lyrics on the stone with trembling fingers. 

_I heard there was a special place, where men could go and emancipate the brutality and tyranny of their rulers._

Wilbur destroyed that place. Wilbur was the ruler that everyone scorned. Wilbur became everything he ever hated and he won’t let himself forget that, not as long as his ghost lingers in L’Manburg, not as long as he is half-alive to pay for his sins. 


End file.
